


Innocent

by CameraLux (TinCanTelephone)



Series: Under the Surface [1]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Growing Up, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, References to Addiction, References to Depression, Sort Of, Teasing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:29:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25490905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TinCanTelephone/pseuds/CameraLux
Summary: While spending a week-long vacation at Katara and Aang's house, Toph realizes they have another houseguest she didn't expect.Or, although she’s almost twenty, Toph still thinks growing up is for suckers. Sokka thinks she might be right.
Relationships: Aang/Katara (Avatar) (background), Toph Beifong/Sokka
Series: Under the Surface [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2024831
Comments: 27
Kudos: 150





	Innocent

**Author's Note:**

> Finally, another Tokka fic! Just a one-shot this time, guys, and not in the same 'verse as [The Quest is a Metaphor](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22830055/chapters/54562153) :P
> 
> Inspired by [this piece of fanart](https://viria.tumblr.com/post/26353381524/that-awkward-moment-when-your-best-friend-grew), meant originally to be fluffy but then turned suuuper angsty on me XD 
> 
> Content warning for references to PTSD, depression, and alcoholism

In Toph’s defense, the first time it happens is an accident. An innocent mistake. It’s early in the morning (by her standards), and she’s a little hungover after celebrating the conclusion of her fourth annual metalbending tour of the world. 

So she’s not thinking clearly that morning, and not bothering to pay attention to things outside her direct radius. After so many visits she has Aang and Katara’s place practically memorized, even if they’ve been a lot less fun since Katara managed to get knocked up on her wedding night.

If it were up to her, Toph wouldn’t even be _awake_ at this hour, but Bumi hadn’t really given anyone in the house much of a choice. Now that the little brat is quiet, all Toph wants is some strong black tea, or maybe some hair of the deer-dog, and to go back to bed. She’s still rubbing sleep out of her eyes and her hair remains in a wild tangle on her head as she shuffles into the kitchen.

“Hey, Toph,” Katara says from the table, with far too much energy for someone who spent half the night feeding a newborn.

Toph grumbles something unintelligible in response and makes a beeline for the teapot.

“Late night?”

Spirits, how is she so chipper? Maybe tea isn’t going to cut it. “Still got any of Sparky’s ’67 firewhiskey?”

Katara scoffs. “We don’t really keep alcohol around anymore.”

Of course not. She swallows a groan and focuses on pouring her tea. Then the back door opens with a bang and she whirls around, hands up and panting.

“Hey Katara, which ones are supposed to be the tomato carrots, because I pulled up a couple plants that _definitely_ don’t look like– holy shit, _Toph?_ ” Whatever he’s holding falls to the ground and he jerks away from her, holding a hand over his eyes.

“Sokka!” Katara pulls the blanket over Bumi’s ears as if the baby has any idea what’s going on.

Toph feels her face heating up against her will and tries to tug her sleeping shirt down over her _very_ bare legs. “What the hell, Katara! You didn’t tell me there was anyone else here!”

“I didn’t think I needed to,” she huffs. “He’s just here to help out with Bumi while Aang’s in Ba Sing Se. Besides, I thought you’d know by now. He was here when you got back last night.”

“It was late.” And she was drunk. But Sweetness really doesn’t need more ammunition.

“So it was.”

She can _hear_ the smirk in Katara’s voice.

Sokka chooses this moment to speak, awkwardly bending over to pick up whatever he’d dropped. “As much as I hate to interrupt– Toph, do you mind?”

“Do I mind what?” she snaps, turning back to her tea.

“Do you mind–” His heart is still pounding, even though the shock has to have worn off, and he’s doing something weird with his head, staring up into the far corner of the room. “Going to put on some _pants_?”

Toph’s cheeks are definitely burning now, but she barrels through the embarrassment like it’ll go away if she pretends it doesn’t exist. “Why should I? _You’re_ the one who’s barged in on _me_.”

“‘Barged in on–?’ This is a communal space! Katara, tell her to–”

“Tell her yourself,” Katara says.

“Fine. Toph, would it kill you to–”

“Yes. Yes it would.” It probably wouldn’t, and at this point she’s starting to regret not pulling on at least some shorts over last night’s underwear, but Toph only has one response to being told what to do and damn if that’s going to change now.

“See, Katara!”

“Spirits, if you’re going to keep whining about it!” Toph puts down her teacup and stomps around the table. “Didn’t mean to offend your suddenly delicate sensibilities!”

She returns to her room in a huff but much more awake, and it doesn’t escape her notice that Sokka’s heart rate doesn’t slow down for another fifteen minutes.

She has a very tempting theory, but one she only cautiously entertains. Toph’s been around the figurative block a few times by now, and well aware of how easy it is to convince yourself of something you really want to be true. So she decides to do a little experiment. Sokka would approve, if he knew. But of course he can’t know, since she’ll be experimenting on him.

It has to happen differently this time, she reflects. After all, he wasn’t expecting to see her that first morning in the kitchen. He could’ve just been surprised by her presence. That rules out sneaking up on him, which is disappointing, and harder than it seems. Toph doesn’t have a great understanding of eyesight, but she gathers it must do something awful to one’s hearing, because she’s scared the shit out of every member of the gaang and most of the staff of her Academy multiple times without even trying.

She decides to wait a couple of days, so as not to arouse suspicion, then puts her rough plan into action. The first step is mentioning to Katara that she’s sometimes chilly at night– which gets her a stack of three ( _three_ ) additional koala sheep wool blankets left at the foot of her bed, but more importantly grants her permission to raid any closet she’d like for extra clothes. The second step is getting to the kitchen in the morning before Sokka, which is pretty easy when she isn’t hungover.

She positions herself in plain view of the door, lounging casually in her chair while keeping one foot on the stone floor.

Sokka grunts in acknowledgement when he trudges into the kitchen ten minutes later, rubbing his eyes and yawning. Still not a morning person, he doesn’t attempt to make conversation with her or Katara before going into the courtyard to check the garden like she’s learned is his habit.

Katara watches him go, then turns back to Toph. “Are you sure you aren’t a little warm?”

The kitchen window faces East, and Toph’s sitting in direct sunlight, wearing one of Katara’s thick robes over the clothes she slept in. She smirks a little to herself. Sugar Queen is so predictable, it’s almost too easy.

She pretends to consider the possibility for a minute. “Yeah, I guess so.”

With little ceremony, she lets the robe fall open and shrugs it off her shoulders, letting it drape over the back of her chair and revealing her clothes underneath. While not quite as immodest as her outfit that first morning, she’s confident it will do the trick.

Then she waits. Sokka’s out there for a long time– and from what she can tell, not doing much of anything. But Toph is nothing if not a master of neutral jing. He kneels by each of the small plots in the courtyard, pulling weeds and inspecting plants for pests, before picking a few tomatoes and walking back towards the door.

She plants both feet flat on the floor and focuses.

He doesn’t notice immediately, turning towards the counter as soon as he steps inside. “Hey, Katara, where do you want me to put these–”

 _Then_ he notices, and Toph has to fight really fucking hard to keep the grin from her face as she feels his heartbeat stutter.

“–put these, uh, put these vegetables?” he finishes after swallowing hard.

“Anywhere is fine,” Katara says.

Toph can’t quite tell what she’s thinking, or if she realizes what’s going on, but at that moment she doesn’t care.

Sokka is still standing by the door, hands fiddling with the edges of his tunic and heart doing funny things.

As casually as she can manage, Toph pushes back from the table and stands up. She walks towards the tea kettle, conveniently on the counter next to Sokka, and clasps her hands above her head, stretching her shoulders and arching her back. There are very few times in her life Toph has thought hard about her outfit, but damn if she didn’t put work into this one. Her loose pants are rolled low over her hips, and she had foregone breast bindings in favor of just a thin tank top not nearly long enough to cover her midriff.

“Good morning, Sokka!”

“’M-morning,” he stutters, awkwardly shuffling out of the way as she lets her hands swing down to her sides and pours herself another cup of tea.

His pulse stutters, then starts beating fast, but Toph can tell by the way his head moves that he’s glancing nervously between her and Katara. She realizes with a bit of frustration that she’s forgotten another variable.

What if he’s just afraid of what _Katara’s_ thinking?

She’ll just do one more test, she tells herself. Then she’ll stop. She’s already collected a good amount of information, although she can’t quite bring herself to think precisely what she’ll _do_ with it. So she distracts herself by coming up with the way to conduct her final test. It’s more complicated than the previous two, since she still can’t catch him by surprise and Katara can’t be around. Despite living in the same house, they haven’t spent much time together alone.

The solution comes to her when she realizes they’ve been sharing the only bathroom in the guest wing. There hasn’t been any conflict over it, since she almost always gets it first and tends to spend as little time in there as possible, but it’s easy enough to change that.

One evening, after a hard workout on the beach at the base of the cliffs chucking rocks around and refining her sandbending technique, she jumps in the shower just before his usual time with the promise, “Sorry, Snoozles, I’ll be quick!”

He grumbles and fumes in the hallway for a few minutes before retreating to his room to wait.

She smirks to herself and turns on the shower. After waiting for the water to warm up, she steps in and initiates part two of her plan. She starts by taking a long time with her hair. Almost down to her waist now, washing it usually takes the majority of time she spends in the shower anyway, but today she really takes her sweet time with it. She makes sure to rub shampoo throughout every part of it, penetrating all the way to her scalp, then rinses it out and starts all over.

She does that twice before moving on to the various soaps and shower gels Katara keeps on the shelves. Toph usually ignores them, finding them to be frivolous and girly for her tastes, but today she examines each of them in turn, smelling them and testing their consistencies between her fingers. Ideally she’d choose the one most likely to effect Sokka, but since she has no idea which one that is, she just chooses her favorite– lavender, with a hint of apple blossom. She uses it to clean every inch of her body, and is in the middle of washing her face when she feel the door to Sokka’s room slam.

“Hey!” He pounds on the bathroom door as if she doesn’t know he’s right outside. “Are you just about done in there?”

“Just a minute!” she says cheerily, scrubbing the last of the soap off her face.

“You’re going to use all the hot water!”

She grins despite herself and turns off the shower. After using one towel to tie up her hair, she carefully chooses another one to dry off her limbs before securing it under her arms. Even though it’s larger than the first, it’s on the thin side and barely reaches her thighs.

“Alright, alright.” She steps out of the bathroom with a flourish and a rush of steam. “It’s all yours.”

He’s leaning against the opposite wall as she exits, and she doesn’t pause to speak to or look at him before turning towards her room and walking away, only allowing her hips to sway _a little_ more than normal.

It’s the best reaction yet. Sokka stands frozen in the hallway as she leaves, watching until she enters her bedroom, and his heart is positively _racing_. Toph allows herself a brief victory dance in her room before she gets changed, and gets in bed expecting to sleep like a baby.

But two hours later, she’s still wide awake, staring blankly at the ceiling (figuratively speaking) and wondering what the hell she’s going to do with with the information she’s gathered. To be honest, when she began this little experiment she didn’t think the results were going to be quite so… positive, and now that she has all this information, it feels a little wrong to use it. She turns onto her side, biting her lip through the feeling of guilt that starts to grow in her stomach. Maybe she should apologize to him– for messing around, teasing him, making him reveal things to her without meaning to. Of course, to do that, she’d have to admit to experimenting on him in the first place.

No, she can’t do that. It was stupid and immature and he’d go right back to seeing her like a little kid.

She rolls over again, punching her pillow into a more comfortable shape. No, her only option is to do nothing at all. She only has a few more days before she runs out of vacation time from the police force, so she’ll just go back to acting normal.

* * *

Acting normal turns out to be easier said than done, especially when she realizes that Sokka’s pulse, perhaps subconsciously aware of her experiments, starts doing weird shit whenever they’re in the same room, regardless of her state of dress. It really doesn’t help when her own heart starts doing the same thing, and eventually she decides to forget about acting normal and settles for acting distant and awkward. If either Sokka or Katara notice, they don’t comment on it, and for that Toph supposes she can thank Bumi, who seems to take up a shocking amount of time and energy for being physically capable of so little.

Weirdly, she finds herself thankful her vacation is almost over, and unable to sleep for excitement the night before her ferry back to the city. After tossing and turning in bed for a few unsatisfying hours, she gives up and decides to go back to the beach and earthbend herself into exhaustion.

As quietly as possible, she dresses and sneaks out the back door, and almost trips over someone sitting on the stoop, scaring the shit out of both of them.

“ _Sokka?_ ”

“ _Toph?_ ” He wheezes, choking on whatever he’d been drinking and capping the flask in his hand.

“What’re you doing out here?” she demands.

“What’re _you_ doing out here?” he retorts.

“I asked you first.”

“Nothing, nothing.” He holds up his hands and leans back. “Just thinking, that’s all.”

“Well, don’t strain yourself.”

To her surprise, he laughs– genuine, open laughter. “Spirits, I’ve missed you, Toph.”

She relaxes, awkwardness temporarily forgotten, and sits down next to him, playfully shoving his shoulder. “’S what I’m here for. Putting you in your place.”

He laughs again, more quietly. “Spirits know I need it.”

She frowns, wondering how much he’s had to drink. It’s not like him to disengage from their banter so quickly, to fall back into seriousness so easily. She licks her lips, pushing down another wave of guilt for her antics over the past week. “Sokka…” His real name feels weird in her mouth and she flushes, suddenly self-conscious of all her juvenile nicknames. “Are you… how are you doing?”

“What’re you talking about, Toph?” he says, in a tone almost like his normal, cheerful self. “I’m doing great.” He takes another drink and his voice lowers. “I’m always doing great.”

His words ring so hollow she almost flinches, and considers making an excuse to leave. It’s so strange to hear him like this, it feels like an invasion of privacy (another one). But something else makes her stay.

“Want to tell me about it?” she says, glad he can’t hear her heart pounding. “How great you’re doing?”

He hesitates, then shakes his head. “You don’t want to hear about it.”

“Don’t be silly, Snoozles. You can tell me anything.” Without thinking about it, she punches him in the arm, and almost surprises herself with her sincerity. Teasing and awkwardness aside, at the end of the day there’s nothing that can keep her from being there for him. 

For a second, she thinks _he’s_ going to make an excuse and go inside, but he doesn’t. He just sits quietly for another long minute, playing with the flask in his hands.

“I–” he says, before stopping abruptly and putting the flask down between his feet.

Toph realizes with a start that his hands are shaking.

“I was just thinking about the war,” he says, taking deep breaths as the tremors slow.

“About how we took out an entire fleet of airships all by ourselves?” she says– mostly as a joke, but it’s also true. It’s how she prefers to remember it, anyway. Not the way he cried out in pain when he landed on the metal platform. Not the terror of falling to what she thought was her certain death.

Facial expressions can be difficult to sense, but she thinks he _almost_ smiles at that, and it makes the exaggeration worth it.

“Yeah,” he says quietly.

She can tell the truth is close, hovering just behind his lips. She waits.

“But also… everything else.” He takes a deep breath, slowly unclenching his hands. “At the time it was almost fun, you know? Traveling around the world on Appa, kicking some butt and having adventures with no real responsibilities, no one to tell us what to do.”

“Except Katara,” she tries to joke again, although it feels flat to her own ears. 

He continues as if she never spoke, “But now I just keep thinking… it’s kind of fucked up, everything we had to go through, everything we had to do. And it’s strange, how I didn’t really feel the weight of it at the time, but now it’s all I can think about and sometimes– at night, especially– it feels like it’s crushing me.” He reaches for the flask again. “Maybe your parents had it right, Toph.”

She almost physically recoils. “You did _not_ just say that.”

“I just mean that if I ever had a kid– Spirits, I’d do anything, _anything_ , to keep them from going through what we did.”

She can’t believe what he’s saying. “Are you saying I shouldn’t have run away? Or that you shouldn’t’ve left the South Pole?”

“Of course not, but doesn’t it ever make you angry? How the war took away your childhood? Your innocence? I mean, I still get called _kid_ in bars and taverns but sometimes I feel so old.” He takes another drink. “And I just realized I kind of hate this growing up shit.”

“What do you mean?”

“Growing up just means all your flaws, all the ugliness inside you, gets magnified and thrown back in your face.”

“What are you talking about?” she says. Sokka’s always been a talker, and for once she finds herself inclined to listen.

“I mean the things you do actually start to _matter_ , and all your actions have consequences and those consequences have consequences and your mistakes become less and less forgivable.”

She looks away, troubled by that idea, and casts about for a positive in everything he’s saying. “But– we’ll always forgive each other, right? Team Avatar, and all that?”

He sighs. “Will we? If Aang’s a shitty husband, or a shitty father, I’ll never forgive him.”

“He won’t be, though.”

“How can you be sure?” he says, gesturing out towards the yard in front of them, and the open water beyond. “He isn’t even here. He flew off to Ba Sing Se, leaving my sister _alone_ with a _newborn_.”

Toph shifts uncomfortably. “Well, he’s the Avatar.”

He snorts. “Yeah, that excuse is going to get old really fucking fast.”

“He loves Katara,” she says with as much conviction she can manage. “And he loves Bumi.”

“Bumi.” He laughs bitterly, shaking his head. “I already feel bad for that kid.”

“Why?”

“Imagine growing up in your parents’ shadow. Now imagine it’s the _Avatar’s_ shadow.”

She falls silent, not sure what to say. She _knows_ Aang and Katara love their son, and would do anything for him, but she has trouble escaping their legacy as their _friend_.

Sokka takes another drink. “Plus, I don’t think he’s going to be an airbender. Maybe not even any kind of bender.”

She looks up. “How can you possibly know that?”

“I can’t.” He shrugs. “But I saw the way Aang looked at him. Like he was already disappointed, but trying really fucking hard not to be.”

For someone so Spirits-damned oblivious most of the time, Toph sometimes thinks Sokka sees far too much for his own good. She reaches for the flask. “My turn.”

It’s Gaipan vodka, the cheap shit, but the burn distracts a little from the heaviness of his words. She tries to hand it back.

He hesitates. “Do me a favor and earthbend that twenty feet underground.”

“What?”

He hangs his head between his knees, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’m supposed to be cutting back.”

She smirks. “Is that why Sweetness got rid of all the booze around here?”

“Guilty.”

She tosses it in the courtyard and does as he asked. “Did she have to drag you out of one too many seedy taverns?”

“Ha. A few.” He stares hard at the ground where the flask disappeared and stands up, stretching his arms above his head and looking out at the water. “But also just… out of my apartment sometimes. That’s partly why I’ve been staying here. Trying to… clean up my act or whatever.”

She falls silent again, waiting for him to sit back down, but he doesn’t. Eventually, she stands up as well and rocks awkwardly on her heels, wondering if this is the right moment for a hug, or some similar show of support. A breeze blows in from the south, and Sokka turns his face into the salty air. Without thinking to hard about it, Toph walks towards the edge of the island, touching him lightly on the back of his arm so he follows.

They stop a few meters from the low wall marking the edge, faces turned into the wind. Staring out at the water never did much for Toph, but from the way Sokka’s heartbeat steadies as the waves crash rhythmically into the cliffs below, she imagines it must give him comfort, of some kind.

At length, he speaks again. “It’s been a really long fucking year.”

“Because of… Suki?” she says, although she realizes with no small amount of shame she doesn’t really know what his life has been like for the past eighteen months or so. Between her academy, Earthen Fire, her new job with the police, and her yearly metalbending tours she’s been keeping herself pretty busy. She only knows about his breakup with Suki because Zuko told her last month when she ran into him in Ba Sing Se.

“I thought so,” he says. “But there’s a lot of other shit, too. Nightmares, mostly. And just… feeling like nothing matters, and not wanting to do anything. Last time I talked to Suki, she said that getting back together wasn’t going to be the solution I wanted it to be.” He pauses. “And she’sprobably right.”

He reaches into his jacket before remembering his flask isn’t there, and winces at the realization that this must be a habit. He tugs his wolftail loose and runs his hands through his hair. “You must think I’m so messed up.”

“Yeah well…” She bends a rock out of the ground and kicks it into the water. “If what you’re saying is true, I bet I’m just as messed up, I just haven’t realized it yet.”

He chuckles, and to her surprise slings an arm over her shoulder, pulling her into a rough side-hug. “Here’s hoping you never will.”

She tries to laugh with him, but the longer she lingers pressed against his side the more she realizes how hard her heart is pounding, and how little separates their skin. She ducks out of his embrace and takes a few breaths to steady herself. “Sokka, there’s something I have to tell you.”

He frowns, taking a hesitant step towards her. “What is it?”

She dithers, shifting from one foot to the other. In the face of everything they’ve talked about, all her little experiments feel so stupid and childish, and she tries to accept the fact that anything he may have felt will be canceled out when he learns what she’s been doing. “You have to promise you won’t be mad.”

He laughs. “Come on, Toph.”

“Promise.”

“Alright, fine. I promise.”

He’s silent, waiting for her to speak, but she hesitates again, not sure how to begin. “I’ve been doing it on purpose.”

He stares at her. “Doing what?”

“Experimenting on you.”

“Uhh…”

She stamps her foot in frustration. For someone very intelligent he can be so stupid sometimes. “When you came in that first day I was here and surprised me in the kitchen your heartbeat went all funny and so I started doing it on purpose just to see if… to see what you…” she trails off, blushing furiously and regretting every decision she’s made this week.

“…Are you serious?”

“I– well–” She flounders, thoroughly flustered and seriously considering just tunneling under the island and never speaking to anyone ever again.

Then he starts laughing, which throws her off even further, and punches her bicep.

Stunned, she actually stumbles backwards, even though he didn’t hit her that hard.

“Spirits, Toph, I should’ve known.” He’s smiling, and trying to suppress more laughter.

“Should’ve known what?”

“You know, the second time I thought– okay maybe it’s a coincidence, but the third time I was like, nah, she definitely knows and just feels like torturing me.”

“I wasn’t– you– what’re you talking about?” She’s so confused. He’s so confusing. “What do I know?”

“Come on, Toph,” he says, stepping closer and reaching out to nudge her arm. “You know how sexy you are.”

“I… I do?” What on earth is he talking about? She steps backwards again, rubbing her temple and trying to understand what’s happening.

“I’m sorry, was that weird to say?” He shifts his feet, rubbing the back of his neck. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable or anything, it’s just… that’s what you were doing, right?” He trails off.

Toph still has no idea what to say to all this, and the silence begins to get awkward before she breaks and asks the first of many, many questions on her mind. “Sokka, do you think I’m pretty?” She cringes at her choice of words, but _beautiful_ sounds too… serious, and she can’t quite bring herself to use the word _sexy_.

He stops shifting around and stares at her, blinking hard. His heart is pounding– she can feel it– and she’s sure he can see her pulse jumping in her throat. “Didn’t I just say that?” he says weakly.

“Yeah, I– yeah.” She shakes her head. “I just wanted to make sure you weren’t lying.”

He frowns. “I’d never lie to you, Toph, not ever. Even if I thought I could get away with it.”

His gaze still hasn’t left her, and everything he’s said finally starts to sink in. A strange feeling starts to grow in her chest, making her feel lighter than air, like her feet are barely touching the ground. Feeling inexplicably bolder, she steps towards him again. “I’m sorry for torturing you.”

He gives a faint, breathy laugh and his heart speeds up even faster. “It wasn’t so bad, as far as torture goes.”

“Well I’m sorry if it was insensitive, considering everything else going on.”

This time, he steps forward, so he’s close enough for her to feel the warmth radiating from him, and hear the gentle rustle of his tunic in the wind. “No,” he says. “It was… I can’t tell you how good it was to see you again this week. I’ve missed you, and– no matter what’s going on things are always better when you’re around.”

“Really?” she whispers.

“Really.” He hesitates, then reaches out and takes her hand. “I should thank you for listening to me ramble tonight.”

“Oh, that…” Her face is tilted up towards his, sightless eyes wide open and staring at nothing. Their faces are so close she can feel his breath on her cheeks and the bolder, more desperate part of her is begging, _You’re so close– just do it! Do it now!_

And then he leans forward in a tiny movement she can nevertheless detect with her feet, then stops with an almost imperceptible hiccup in his breath, like he’s hesitating, waiting.

So she goes for it. In one smooth motion perfected over years of denial and poorly-suppressed daydreams she reaches up behind his head and pulls his mouth down to hers.

He makes a small noise of surprise, but quicker than she expects he wraps his arms around her and pulls her flush against his body.

And she can’t help it, she gives a little sigh of pleasure and leans harder into the kiss.

His grip on her waist is tight, almost desperate, and she can still taste the vodka on his tongue. It reminds her why this might be a bad idea, and she pulls away with a gasp.

“What’re we doing?”

He licks his lips and answers honestly, because he could never lie to her, “Probably something we shouldn’t.”

She swallows, and thinks if she were a little more mature, she’d tear herself away from him and go back into the house. But if she’s learned anything tonight, it’s that she’s definitely not that mature just yet, and she kind of wants to enjoy the freedom from her demons for as long as she can.

So she kisses him again, and he leans into it, hands climbing up her back. There’s a soft noise in the back of his throat that makes her wonder how long it’s been since he’s felt something _good_ , or really– anything at all, and she wishes a kiss would fix it.

Suki’s probably right– this isn’t the solution either of them want it to be, but here in the middle of the night with nothing but the waves crashing below them she can almost pretend that it is. It’s almost like a very good dream, one she has to savor until the spell is broken by the sunrise. She hopes it can be a good dream for Sokka, too– something to crowd out the nightmares.

Eventually, they move in sync to sit onto the low wall before them, legs swinging in the breeze and noses filled with salty air. Neither of them speak, but every so often Sokka leans over to kiss her again, or she leans over to him, like they’re checking to make sure the other is real.

They’re still there when Toph feels warmth on her face from the east.

**Author's Note:**

> Ending Credits  
> "Open Season" - The High Highs
> 
> Thank you so much for reading/comments/kudos!! And shoutout to the great people on the Tokka discord for listening to my rants about writing and generally helping me with the process. Luv all u guys <33
> 
> As always, I'm on tumblr at [cats-and-metersticks](https://cats-and-metersticks.tumblr.com/) :D


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